Because Together...

Friends of Hope,

On February 9th, our Board President, Michael Nash, and I will start the 27-hour journey to Liberia. It has been three long years since we’ve been able to travel to see our friends and spend days at the school that Hope has made possible.
 
This trip feels extra celebratory, as this year Hope International is celebrating 15 years of educational opportunities. 

In 2007, Hope International’s founding principal (and our dear friend) Joseph sat at my kitchen table and shared with Michael and Christy Nash, my husband David and myself, the great need for a school in his community and his deep desire to establish it. Trust me when I tell you that the reasonable response would have been something like “beautiful idea Joseph, but we do not have the resources to do this.” We talked, or I should say, Joseph talked, and somehow (Joseph is very convincing) when we stood up from the table, we were all in agreement that we would open a school in Gardnersville, Liberia.

We then scrambled and asked friends and family to join, in Hope, to bring educational opportunities to a community that had none. Some of you reading this were there at the very beginning, some of you have joined along the way, and today, Hope International has become the heart of the community where over 1,800 students are pursuing their education. 

Someone, who is at the beginning stage of working towards a dream that currently seems impossible, recently asked me, “how did Hope make it?” and the words that came to mind, that are a grammatical nightmare I know, ...because Together. Joseph, those gathered at the table that night, those that joined with them, the staff that Joseph hired, the students, the neighborhood, YOU.   

I look forward to sharing with you during and after our visit what has been made possible. Together, we can celebrate all that has grown and bloomed over these last 15 years. 

Because Together, 
Jackie

Journey with Jackie!

Follow The Hope Project on social media to share in Jackie’s travel journey. She will post updates and photos while in Liberia. 

Abel is Sew Able

Please meet Abel, a recent graduate of Hope International's on-site vocational program, Sew Much Hope. As a child, Abel lived in a rural county of Liberia. During the civil war he was displaced from his parents and brought to the capital city of Monrovia by an NGO. He was placed with people of his tribal language, but he eventually ended up homeless. To support himself, Abel sold cold water as a street vendor. When he heard about the Sew Much Hope sewing/tailoring program he enrolled.  

Through all his hard work, Abel was selected by Sew Much Hope instructors to be the tailor of this year’s senior student uniforms. Students in Liberia all wear school uniforms. As you are walking or driving down the highway the brightly colored uniforms help identify the school that the children represent. Hope International’s school color is blue. 

Abel is using his skills to sew 160 uniforms and is receiving great praise for his abilities and dedication.   
 
He is now well on his way to starting his own business because of the vocational training he has received through the Sew Much Hope program. Hope International’s three on-site vocational programs Sew Much Hope, Cooking Up Hope, and Power of Hope were all made possible by generous grants received from Project Redwood of Tides Foundation.  

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Back in July, we shared with you the initial plans for a sanitation program benefiting the surrounding community of Hope International. It was made possible by a generous grant given from Jim and Sally Olson in honor of the employees at Olson Laboratories. We are excited to share over the last several months we have been working in partnership with Gabriel Nyarko, a Liberian change-maker passionate about waste management and environmental sustainability, to formalize the program.  

Gabriel Nyarko

While Hope International and educational opportunities for the 1,500+ students remain the heart of all we do, the surrounding community is an integral part of all that happens at Hope. We had a long-held dream to provide the community with sanitation services. 

Liberia’s infrastructure, decimated in the civil war, has been slow to recover, leaving most of the country without access to clean water and waste collection. Without waste collection, community members burn or dump garbage in the streets and water ways. This burning, including plastics, is creating significant present-day and future health concerns for students and community members. 

Since receiving the grant, groundwork has been significant. Community meetings and public education, fee establishment to ensure program can become self-sustaining, and equipment procured.  

On December 12th, the first neighborhood garbage collection was led and completed by Gabriel and his team. As a gift to the school and community, they also cleaned out years of debris in the water way directly behind Hope International. 

I will be traveling to Liberia in February, and I can’t wait to report back to you the direct impact and quality of life improvement for students, staff, and surrounding community. 

Hope in the New Year, 

Jackie Frazier